LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) "Rescue Me" ended its second season with a bang, with the season finale scoring the biggest audience of the season and the best adults 18-49 numbers of any basic-cable finale this year.

Tuesday's (Sept. 13) finale of the FX show brought in 3.6 million viewers, the most for the show since its premiere in July 2004. Of those, 2.4 million were adults 18-49 -- making the episode the most-watched finale of the year on basic cable. TNT's "The Closer," which had a much larger overall audience (6.4 million viewers), is second with 2.3 million.

The finale packed an emotional wallop too, with firefighter Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) shattered by the death of his son and Chief Reilly (Jack McGee) at a loss over how to deal with his wife's Alzheimer's disease.

After starting a little slowly in June, "Rescue Me's" ratings picked up over the final weeks of the season to finish about even with the show's first-season numbers. Season two averaged 2.8 million viewers overall, up from 2.7 million last year, and 1.8 million in the 18-49 demographic. That's down a little from 1.9 million last year.

FX has already picked up a third season of the show, which will begin shooting early next year. It's expected back on the air in mid-2006.